Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 20:36:07 +0200
From: Julian Obedient
Subject: The Minute After
As much as I am a sucker for looks, it is not just a guy's physical
beauty that draws me to him and turns me on. Breadth of spirit, depth
of intelligence, generosity of soul, handsomeness of character --
these are all constituents of beauty as for as I'm concerned.
I value these qualities and try to cultivate them in myself, too, and
I take good care of my person, go to the gym, eat well, keep fit,
dress, I've been told, with flair and am, on the whole, alluring and
good to look at. I hold myself to a high standard of ethics, caring,
and concern in personal, civic, and professional relations.
Thus it was a particularly challenging occasion when I first saw David.
I met him, and was overawed by him, when he entered my consulting room
to discuss a difficulty he had which was generalized, he said, as an
inability to bring any project to a satisfactory conclusion, but
specifically referred to his present inability to mobilize himself to
finish a doctoral dissertation -- The Intersection of Wish and Reality
in the Travel Narratives of Herman Melville -- which was just short of
being complete.
As I have already indicated, he was an exceptionally attractive young
man -- sandy blond hair, green eyes, winning smile -- immediately
warm, witty, present, and extraordinarily handsome, well-formed in his
body, graceful in his movements and with a face that rewarded anyone
confident enough in himself to allow his gaze to repose upon it
without withdrawing it in the fear that encounters with beauty can
often provoke.
It would be unfair to both myself and to you, I said to him, to become
your therapist, and I find I must be honest in admitting this: I could
not maintain the distance necessary in this sort of relationship to be
of any use to you. Perhaps I ought to reproach myself for that fact.
Instead, I congratulate myself on the fact that I am clear-sighted
enough to see and admit my attraction and to renounce the advantage of
influence becoming your therapist might afford me.
You are saying then, he smiled as if he were making a particularly
dainty chess move, that in order to be effective you need to feel a
certain amount of distaste or disdain for your clients?
Touche, I said, but no, I do not think I need to confess to that even
as I admit to what I have said about my reaction to you. A certain
distance, although not indifference, is necessary for clear
observation and analysis.
But then, he said, still with a smile, returning the serve, as it
were, keeping the game in play and not letting me off the hook with a
forfeit, what is to become of me?
I will, I said, give you several names as referrals, all excellent
practitioners.
But none of them you, he said.
No, I said. But that may be for the best.
He nodded, waited.
And then?
Well, and then, because we have no professional connection I may
actually do what I should have only wished to do but been forbidden to
do had I taken you on as a client.
He looked momentarily puzzled, but intrigued. I confess my effect upon
him thrilled me and confirmed to me by this response of mine to his
response that I had acted rightly in keeping our relationship free of
professional or financial entanglement.
Then, I said, I may freely and without compunction invite you to join
me for drinks and dinner tonight.
* * *
Champagne, he said.
Champagne, I said. Of course champagne. May its froth delight your
heart, I said lifting my glass in toast, and he tipped his in salute,
and together we drank to some wonderful hope that had begun to bubble
up in both of us.
You aren't really very much older that I am, are you?
No, I said, there aren't ten years between us.
But such a great difference nevertheless.
Do you think so?
Yes, he said, taking a sip of champagne.
What do you think that is? I asked.
You have accomplished something, he said. Whereas I...
His voice fell to a whisper.
...haven't.
And it was because you feel this way about yourself that...
...that I came to see you today.
And are you disappointed?
How can I be? sitting here in this pavilion in Central Park drinking
champagne and eating this delicious lamb cous cous as the sky goes
ultra-marine. And yet...
And yet...
And yet, I have a sense that I am dreaming a wonderful dream, but in
the dream there also is an alarm clock that will go off, and the
dream, like a smashed window, will shatter and fall to pieces, and
there will be only a heap of shards left in its place.
I put my hand on his -- we were both somewhat the better for the
champagne -- and said, it does not have to be that way. This will be
something you can bring to completion.
He smiled, sadly, if such a thing is possible.
Isn't it nice to think so?
We can, I responded, make it so.
A string quartet in a marble alcove, at that moment, began to play
Beethoven's gorgeous First Rasoumovsky Quartet (Opus 59, No. 1), and
we stopped, our eyes met, astounded, as if, perhaps, there had
descended upon us a special blessing.
* * *
You know, he said, I'll never get my dissertation completed this way.
Fortunately, I said between light kisses on his lips, that is a
problem for you to deal with with your therapist, not with me.
The sun was in the meridian. The sky was a deep and cloudless blue,
and the Atlantic stretched infinitely to the horizon.
She isn't here, he said, stretching as my kisses caused volts of
excitement to shoot through him. But you are.
And?
And you could do something for me.
Like what? I said tracing my sandy fingers lightly around the aureoles
of his nipples.
You could hypnotize me and order me to finish my dissertation.
Do you really think that's all I'd do if I hypnotized you?
I hope not.
I had some qualms, it is true.
It's playing with fire, I said, putting the words in quotes by
presenting them in an ironic tone of voice, but what the irony was I
do not know, aside from the fact that I was using a cliche rather than
really analyzing what the danger, if there was any, might be.
It couldn't get any hotter, he responded, piercing me with his eyes.
Hypnotize me. I want to feel what it's like to be in your power. How
different can it be from being under your spell? which I am already,
which I've been from the moment I saw you.
Already stretched body to nearly naked body in the sand, it was
inevitable that those words would put an end to words and bring us to
the point of becoming one breath in two bodies as our mouths met.
* * *
Although he shared a small apartment with two other graduate students
on Avenue C, for several weeks now David had been around my apartment
a lot. So I was not surprised to see him sitting on the front stoop
when I returned mid-afternoon on a Friday from my office on Twelfth
Street.
It looked like he had completely given up, for the time being, anyhow,
any attempt to work on his dissertation. This enhanced resistance
seemed to be directly in proportion to the hectoring of his therapist,
"to just finish it and not make it such a big issue." He complained
about that a lot, often with the coda, "she can go fuck herself."
I admit I could not see the virtue in this tack, if the goal was
indeed to get David to finish his work. On the other hand, if the
therapist harbored a similar feeling to mine, that things done with
such great reluctance ought to be abandoned, then perhaps her
hectoring was a brilliant counter-intuitive strategy. She'd bother him
so much, he'd just give it up.
When he saw me, David jumped up and ran to me, threw his arms around
me and spun us around in a joyful embrace.
It's finished.
Finished?
It's finished.
What's finished?
What's finished? What else? My dissertation.
I thought you'd stopped working on it.
That's how much you know.
I guess so, I said. Tell me more.
There's really nothing much to tell. I read it over last night and
realized that there was nothing more I had to do. I stayed up all
night, shifted things around a little, made the introduction the
conclusion, the conclusion the introduction, and it made sense. I
printed out three hard copies and made three floppies and handed them
in this morning.
Congratulations, I said, taking him by the shoulders. What shall we do
to celebrate?
Hypnotize me, he said.
But you've written your dissertation, I said.
Old age is making you slow-witted, he said.
We'll see about that, I said.
* * *
It rained that night. More than rain, actually, a terrific summer
thunder storm with heavy duty stone rolling in heaven and great
mercury-lamp ganglia of lightening cracking the firmament.
All the windows were shut and being pelted by the rain. I'd lit
candles all around the room and set one beside a stick of lavender
incense on a makeshift altar and set a comfortable chair for David a
few feet in front of it.
The candle flamed. David gazed. I spoke, slowly, softly, hypnotically,
and took him under.